A Spanish athlete emerged from a cave after spending 500 days of solitude in a bid challenge human endurance.
Beatriz Flamini, a 50-year-old elite Spanish athlete, emerged from a cave on Friday after spending 500 days alone in the dark to experience how the human mind and body can deal with extreme solitude and deprivation.
“I was expecting to come out and have a shower,” she told the room full of reporters, reported The Guardian. “I wasn’t expecting there to be so much interest.”
After she came out from her subterranean lair, which was 70 metres below the ground, Flamini had a quick checkup with a doctor and a psychologist after which she addressed a 50-minute press conference about her survival.
It was on November 20, 2021, that the elite sportswoman first entered the cave. During her stay, the athlete was monitored by a team of scientists from the universities of Almería, Granada and Murcia, who kept in touch through special, limited messaging technology, added the report. Now, the Madrid athlete is thought to have broken the world record for the longest time a person has spent alone in a cave.
Flamini told the media that she had lost track of time after day 65. “For me at least, as an elite extreme sportswoman, the most important thing is being very clear and consistent about what you think and what you feel and what you say,” she said. “It’s true that there were some difficult moments, but there were also some very beautiful moments – and I had both as I lived up to my commitment to living in a cave for 500 days.”
Flamini said she passed the time calmly and purposefully by reading, writing, drawing, knitting and by enjoying herself: “I was where I wanted to be, and so I dedicated myself to it. I’m cooking; I’m drawing … You have to be focused. If I get distracted, I’ll twist my ankle. I’ll get hurt. It’ll be over and they’ll have to get me out. And I don’t want that.”
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